February « 2020 « Mars Section

February 28, 2020.

Early Dust Storm Alert

Clyde Foster submitted to ALPO images of Mars on Feb. 21, 26 and 27 2020. All three together show what look like dust clouds as far West as Noachis and Eastward covering Hellas and Iapygia Viridis and as far East as the Southern part of Mare Tyrrhenum. There is a dust incursion onto the Northern edge of the SPC in the 2020-02-27 image. A composite of the three images can be found in an album titled “Dust storm alerts” on the Mars Observers web site as well as in the ALPO Mars Gallery. Congratulations to Clyde Foster for the detailed images.
Submitted by Jim Melka

February 12, 2020.

The Mars Pre-Apparition report for the 2020 apparition

Information about the 2020 apparition of Mars can be found here. This link has details about the entire apparition, including:
◙ its apparent size and brightness.
◙ its phase angle and elongation from the Sun.
◙ the changes to expect in its polar caps.
◙ its clouds and possible dust storms.
(The final table in the article, a table of events to observe during this apparition, contains errors as originally written. The corrected table is here.)

Best of luck in observing the Red Planet this apparition. Please share your observations with us on our message list at http://groups.io/g/marsobservers. There you can upload your drawings and images to the photos section, find observing resources, and share in our discussions.